Barbara Kruger

Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow
21 April–26 September 2005

Barbara Kruger, American artist and political
activist, is exhibiting in Scotland for the first time, contributing
to the 'Rule of Thumb: Contemporary Art and Human Rights' programme
of exhibitions, workshops and events that confront the exploitation
of women. Her exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow
features an installation that fills the whole of Gallery 4 - the
floor, columns and skylight windows - with enlarged newspaper
articles and slogans. In an interview with Amnesty International
early in 2005, Kruger commented:

I try to address notions of power and how they make
us look and feel: how they dictate our futures and our past. How
power is threaded through culture impacts both men and women. We
all live in a world constructed through the dense machinations of
trade and expenditure, of pleasure and desire, of labour and wages.
I think that pictures and words have the power to make us rich or
poor. I try to engage that power using methods that are both seductive
and critical.

Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945. She attended
the Syracuse College of Visual and Performing Arts, before studying
under Diane Arbus at Parsons School of Design in New York, emerging
out of the New York art scene in the 1970s. Kruger's ideals and
methods are reminiscent of the Guerrilla Girls - albeit in a less
radical form - but her work is not new. It is perhaps even passé;
but this may be a response to a political and social situation that
has changed little in the past few decades and whose particular
issues are still relevant. The exhibition effectively communicates
the extent of domestic abuse, prostitution and general exploitation
of women in contemporary society. This aspect of her work appears
to be socially conscientious and compassionate, but it is only one
side of a paradox. Although the exhibition does not show a large
amount of Kruger's work - it is a single installation rather than
a retrospective - it does give access to the artist's other work
through a well-stocked gallery shop. In fact, her work is suitable
gift shop material; her pictures reproduce well, and her puns are
entertaining. The concern is that there is little to distinguish
between Kruger's work, which has been exhibited in the Tate Gallery
in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the comic
retro kitsch to be found universally in pretty gift shops. Kruger's
work, tinged with politics for sincerity, sells well - but has Barbara
sold out?

As with many Pop artists, Kruger has a background in advertising.
She began her career working for Mademoiselle magazine and uses
such techniques to publicise her cause. As well as the visual arts,
Kruger writes essays and articles and a collection of these entitled
Remote Control: Power, Cultures, and the World of Appearances is
for sale, giving an insight into the artist's concerns and political
orientation. Although of honourable intention, displaying a clear
drive for social reform and cultural liberation, her writing is
reminiscent of American film-maker Michael Moore's book, Dude, Where's
My Country? when she comments:

In a society rife with purported information, we know that words
have power, but usually when they don't mean anything ... This
concerted attempt to erase the responsibilities of thought and volition
from our daily lives has produced a nation of couched-out softies,
easily riled up by the most cynically vacuous sloganeering and handily
manipulated by the alibis of 'morality' and false patriotism. To
put it bluntly, no one's home. We are literally absent from our
own present.

Kruger attempts to solve the apparent lack of perception in modern
society by facing the viewer with outsize slogans splashed across
photographs; if people do not notice statistics about domestic violence
in newspapers, then perhaps they will if they are blown-up and pasted
onto billboards. It is the same concept used by Michael Moore, whose
films Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 911 were shown in cinemas
globally. Similarly, Kruger fights against a selective media with
media of her own that is bigger, more colourful and in residence
in a large city for six months. She is using art for activism, just
as Moore used cinema to expose the American nightmare. It has become
a dirty game.

Hidden somewhere amid the metre-long letters there must be some
small print - the art world's fee for giving political activism
space to advertise - as in this otherwise reputable and refreshing
art gallery, there is no art in Gallery 4. There is a gift shop
where you can buy a T-shirt with the - ironic? - slogan, 'I shop
therefore I am', but there is little original substance here to
balance the style. In imitation of Barbara Kruger, I quote The Strokes:
'Is this it?'